HMC Igor Procedure File

The HMC procedure file adds the HMC menu to the Igor menubar, which makes a number of commonly needed operation
much simpler to carry out. When all goes well, it is straightforward to install and to update. The basic steps are
as follows (with details to follow below):

Remove any older versions of the procedure file AutoUpdate.ipf.

Download the current version of AutoUpdate.ipf and save it in the Igor Procedures
folder inside your Igor Pro NUser Files

(Quit and re)launch Igor Pro

Enter Install("HMC") on the command line and press Enter.

Installation Instructions

The HMC menu uses another procedure
file, AutoUpdate.ipf to monitor for new
versions of Igor procedures and to update them automatically
for you. The basic installation procedure for the HMC menu now
is first to install AutoUpdate.ipf and then use a one-line
command to install the HMC.ipf file.

Open Igor Pro. If you have a version older than 7
installed, you can upgrade it following the instructions on
the WaveMetrics
website.

From the Help menu select Show
Igor Pro User Files (notShow Igor
Pro Files). You should see a folder with several
subfolders. The target folder is the one
called Igor Procedures. You will be saving a
file there in the next step, so make sure you know where it
is.

Quit Igor Pro.

Right-click
(ctrl-click) on this link and save the
file AutoUpdate.ipf in the target
folder that was opened in step 2. Make sure
that your browser does not change the file extension from .ipf
to .txt.

Launch Igor Pro.

In the command line, type the command Install("HMC"). Note that
the string is case-sensitive; it won't work if you change the capitalization.

You should now have the HMC menu near the right of the Igor menu bar.

Troubleshooting

You may encounter an error when installing or upgrading the
HMC menu that says something akin to name already
exists as a function. If this happens to you, there
is a simple remedy.

Click the Quit Compile button.

From the Igor Help menu select Show Igor Pro User Files.

Delete any files whose names start with
either AutoUpdate or HMC
in either the Igor Procedures or
the User Procedures subfolders.

From the Igor Help menu select Show Igor Pro Folder.

Delete any files whose names start with
either AutoUpdate or HMC
in either the Igor Procedures or
the User Procedures subfolders.

Quit Igor Pro.

Launch Igor Pro.

You can now follow the installation instructions given above and all should be well.

Unavoidable Gibberish

Once you have installed AutoUpdate.ipf and HMC.ipf, each
time you launch Igor (which loads both file), Igor will check
with this server to see if an updated version of either is
available. If it is, it will ask if you'd like to update.
Unfortunately, if you don't have a network connection, Igor
will issue an error. I have tried to trap for this, but cannot
intercept the error before the warning is posted. Just ignore it.